Freedom Archive in Albuquerque

The Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice will present a film screening and discussion with producer Claude Marks and other guests on Friday, Feb. 4. Marks is the director of The Freedom Archives, a San Francisco-based organization dedicated to preserving and restoring audio and video recordings documenting social justice movements from the ’60s to the present. Marks’ organization produced the currently touring documentary Cointelpro 101. The film explores a little-known FBI program to track and possibly dismantle progressive, grassroots movements in America. The film will be shown at the Peace and Justice Center (202 Harvard SE) beginning at 6 p.m. A discussion with Marks and several special guests from the film follows the screening. Admission is $5 at the door. The screening is part of P&J’s weekend of events commemorating Leonard Peltier’s 35th year of incarceration.

Indie comedy/drama looks at post-college life in miniature

By Devin D. O’Leary

If Lena Dunham’s new indie dramedy Tiny Furniture doesn’t represent the voice of a new generation of filmmakers, then it will do nicely until the real thing comes along. It’s not that the twentysomething writer-director-actress does anything wildly different than those who came before her. Astute indie fans will certainly spot the DNA of predecessors Nicole Holofcener (Walking and Talking, Lovely & Amazing) and Lisa Cholodenko (High Art, The Kids are All Right) in the NYC filmmaker’s first feature. But Dunham’s debut is notable largely for what it does not do.

Mike Leigh brings the camera in close for another vivid character study

By Devin D. O’Leary

The criticism most often levied by casual viewers against non-Hollywood films—those of the indie, art house and foreign variety—is that they’re slow. There’s no action. Edits are infrequent, cameras are often static, people rarely get killed and explosions are all but absent. Given that, I must concede that not a damn thing of any consequence happens in Mike Leigh’s new film Another Year. Nonetheless, it’s a warm, inviting film that’s well deserving of its many year-end awards (one Oscar nod, two BAFTA nominations, four from the British Independent Film Awards and a slew of kudos from various film critics associations).

“Lizard Lick Towing” on truTV

By Devin D. O’Leary

If you’ve been a regular reader of “Week in Sloth” (below), you’ve probably run across a mention of the Wheel of Blue Collar Jobs That Don’t Have Reality Shows Yet. Basically, network programmers spin it every couple of weeks in order to find new series. That’s how they ended up giving reality shows to motorcycle builders, repo men, exterminators, tree trimmers, crab fishermen, swordfish fishermen, oil riggers, truck drivers, auctioneers, pawn brokers, snow-plow drivers and guys who buy abandoned storage lockers. The latest non-college-degree career field to land its own reality show? Tow-truck drivers.